86 ] Por el agujero de la memoria construyendo PAZ

Summary of Special Commission

Article I of the Constitution and Rules of the WCC states, ‘The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches’ (2013, 37). The Special Commission proposed a change to the concept of member church in the WCC:

The term ’church’ as used in this article could also include an association, convention or federation of autonomous churches. A group of churches within a country or region, or within the same confessional family may apply to belong to the fellowship of the Council. (2003, 34)

The proposed change, as outlined in Appendix C to the Final Report, was incorporated into the Constitution and Rules of the WCC.

The proposal from the Special Commission seeks to respond to two, primarily Orthodox, concerns. Firstly, some churches in the WCC would like to expand its membership, recognising that large parts of Christianity, particularly those designated ‘evangelical’ or ‘Pentecostal’ are not members of the WCC, or participants in the ecumenical movement. Potentially, this could lead to a further minority context for Orthodox member churches because new member churches will most likely be Protestant, Pentecostal or evangelical churches.55 There is little scope for the expansion of Orthodox members. Secondly, Orthodox member churches question how admission of numerically small churches promotes Christian unity, particularly in cases where other churches of the same

denomination in the same country are already members of the WCC (for example, several Presbyterian churches in Korea), or where the applicant church is either the result of an ecclesial split or a church-dividing missionary activity.

This chapter will focus on the second of these Orthodox questions. The first question is concerned primarily with institutional policy. Wider solutions have been proposed in other sections of the Final Report, notably concepts of ‘parity participation’ and a consensus model of decision-making which was explored in chapter three. It is the second question,

55 _{For a fuller discussion of the distinctions and ambiguities of the terms Protestant, Evangelical and} Pentecostal see José Miguez Bonino’s book, Rostos do Protestantismo Latino—Americano (Faces of Latin American Protestantism) (2003). Miguez Bonino asks whether the ‘faces’ of Latin American Protestantism are distinct because they designate different subjects, or whether they are different ‘masks’ for the one subject (2003, 7).

which relates to a broader academic discussion about representation, recognition, and post- colonialism, that is the subject of this chapter.

The Final Report suggests changes to the WCC understanding of the term ‘church’. This change also has implications for the understanding of the unity of the Church. It introduces some factors not immediately recognisable as part of the hegemonic ecumenical agenda as an aid to the definitions and use of term the Church. The first of these factors is the very difficult and varied relationship between church and state, which for the Orthodox Church includes considering the country in which the church gathers and the country in which the leadership of the church meets. The second, and inter-related, factor is the transition from ‘missionary movement’ to ‘indigenous church’ – or in Orthodox terms, an autocephalous church – and the shift from colonialism to decolonisation and to the post-colonial. The third factor introduces the recognition by the churches of a post-colonial world, where unity is no longer a colonising concept.In other words, the unity of the church cannot be reduced to a search for a mutual recognition among canonical hierarchs (either persons or councils), whereby at source, what is being reinforced is a hegemonic model of the church that does not belong with the diaspora or subaltern perspectives. The Orthodox opposition to applications from several member churches of the same confessional family in the same country can be interpreted as a contesting of the colonial understanding and construct of the churches. Frequently, the applications from churches of the same confessional family in the same country, a product of the ‘missionary movement’, is a consequence of colonial politics in ecclesiology. The Orthodox understanding of ‘Orthodox space’ and catholicity (Tsetsis in Clapsis 2004), (the unity of the church in a given territorial locality) challenges this political colonial ecclesiology. The second aspect to contesting colonial constructs is the expressed opposition in the Orthodox Church to proselytism, which too can be interpreted as contesting Western forms of expansionism through a form of ecclesial colonialism.

Todor Sabev, drawing on Orthodox experiences of Christian division, calls this the ‘human element in the church’ (1996, 58). Importantly, for Sabev:

Most of these difficulties were prompted by theological divergences and non-dogmatic factors, inextricably linked together – as they have always been. Difference of cultural background, linguistic limitations, shifting terminology of subtle matters of faith, long isolation and problems of communication between the churches scattered in various regions of the world had repercussions on mutual understanding and church unity. (1996, 58)

In addition to being a divisive factor, it ought to be remembered that this ‘human element’ has also influenced the search for Christian unity.

Sabev’s observations, coupled with the work of the Special Commission and its proposals regarding membership and representation, can be usefully developed through a dialogue between theology and cultural studies. This chapter presents the work of some Orthodox thinkers who engage with this topic, notably Nicolas Berdyaev. It then presents the work of Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said and Walter Mignolo – a dialogue point with the theology and philosophy of liberation – before suggesting some alternative paradigms for

understanding membership and representation in the ecumenical movement.

East and West

In his autobiography Nicolas Berdyaev56 reflects on proceeding from different premises (1950, 248) during his exile in Germany and subsequent move into France: ‘The two years of my life in Berlin were a prelude to my Western wayfaring, Germany being in every sense the boundary of the Russian East and European West’ (1950, 250). In the European West, Berdyaev distinguishes between Russian émigrés and exiles. He draws the

conclusion that assimilating Eastern and Western premises is a matter of recognising that the West is affected by a historical and cultural context – the ‘when and how’ – whereas the East – ‘not having left the stage of barbarism’ (1950, 251) – focussed on the ‘what’ (1950, 250).

Berdyaev’s observations draw out the universalising tendencies of Western history and culture – its civilising designs and its rational projects. However, there are two further minor observations from his autobiography on exile in the West which are of interest. Firstly, in passing he mentions that in the same way that Germany and France is the West for Russians, Russia surely represents the West for India and China (1950, 252). This ought not to be confused with a geographical positioning of the countries, nor should it imply civilising designs on the non-Western, in each case, as inevitably, it can be both. Rather, Berdyaev chooses to locate his observation in a ‘crisis of historical Christianity’; an inheritance from Christendom, with conflicts between ‘personality and universal harmony, between individual and general, the subjective and objective’ (250, 252).

56 _{Nicolas Berdyaev was a Russian philosopher who was committed variously to Marxism, Existentialism} and Christianity. He has proved a major interlocutor of Russian and Orthodox essence in dialogue with major thinkers from the European Enlightenment, notably Jacques Maritain, Martin Buber and Gabriel Marcel amongst others. His legacy is more contested in Russian Orthodox theological circles. But the leading Russian Orthodox bishop, Hilarion Alfeyev called Berdyaev: ‘A major figure of the Russian religious renaissance and the most outstanding philosopher of Russia in the first half of the twentieth century’ (2011, 248). His work coincides with the emerging ecumenical movement that became the WCC.

His second minor observation recounts the influence of groups closely identified with the missionary movement which shaped émigré and exiled Russian Orthodoxy in the West. The Young Men’s Christian Association supported the creation of the Institute of Science in Berlin to carry on the work of the Moscow Academy of Moral Science and the religious- philosophical societies (1950, 247). It also helped to form the Russian Student Christian Movement (SCM) – although Berdyaev wryly observes that the Russian SCM was a misnomer, as it had no student members. This observation is of particular interest because it captures that the lay Christian movements, and not only church-led initiatives which were fundamental to the developing ecumenical vision, were an Orthodox as well as a Protestant reality in the years before the formation of the WCC.

The East–West division, which envelopes the framework of the Special Commission and the only book published in response to its work by Anna Marie Aagaard and Peter Bouteneff, is given a different premise by Berdyaev’s philosophical reflections. The division is not one primarily of ecclesiastical history or identity politics as Peter Bouteneff argues in his contribution to the book, Beyond the East–West Divide: The World Council of

Churches and ‘the Orthodox Problem’ (2001, 37). This is only a part of the question.

Berdyaev raises the premise that it is from Eastern émigrés and exiles that a plurality of culture emerges within the West, which challenges its universalisms. For Berdyaev’s existentialism, it is important to recognise that this challenge is not only a historical and cultural contextualisation, but has roots in what he calls a ‘spiritual disquietude’ (1950, 258) and the need to overcome ‘a sense of remoteness’ (1950, 264). (Although he does acknowledge that even in post-war Europe, the churches were burdened by historical considerations, which impeded mutual understanding). The sense of remoteness of which Berdyaev speaks is an interesting new perspective for the ecumenical movement. It alights not first on differences, but the conflict, pain and bitterness involved in being of the same essence.

The East as an Invention of the West

Berdyaev’s reflections introduce themes of émigré and exile, and of East and West. Homi K. Bhabha57 has written:

Terms of cultural engagement, whether antagonistic or affiliative, are produced performatively … The borderline engagements of cultural difference may as often be

57

Homi K. Bhabha is an Indian academic, born into the minority Parsi community. He now teaches at Harvard University, after having graduated from Oxford University. His interests range from literature to post-colonial studies, and include a contribution to cultural studies in which he posits theories parting from ambivalence.

consensual as conflictive; they may confound our definitions of tradition and modernity; realign the customary boundaries between private and public, high and low, and challenge normative expectations of development and progress. (2004, 3)

Berdyaev’s autobiography demonstrates the consensual and conflictive between émigré and exiled Russian people in Western Europe. At the same time, his thought invites a realignment in understanding the customary boundaries between East and West as something more than geopolitical. Berdyaev pushes towards a remoteness derived from being of the same essence. Bhabha would describe this as the performative borderline engagement, which may be conflictive or consensual. For both Berdyaev and Bhabha, there is not the geopolitical need for a borderline, as Bouteneff describes, but rather a need to explore why émigrés and exiles are of the same essence in different locations but

perform a sense of remoteness.

Bhabha’s thinking is helpful in addressing some of this context: ‘Are we trapped in a politics of struggle where representations of the social antagonism and historical

contradictions can take no other form than a binarism?’ (2004, 28). Often the work of the Special Commission, but also the discourse of the ecumenical movement, succumb to this binarism when it articulates an East–West ecumenical divide. The divide might be

presented as a series of essentialisms as John Meyendorff presents it in his brief

presentation of East–West differences in his book, Catholicity and the Church (1983). He focusses on differences of language (the use of Latin in the Western Church) which influence thought patterns, aesthetics, and theology (1983, 139). He locates the

Reformation as an internal Latin protest consequent of this language choice (1983, 49). The divide might also follow representations of historical contradictions, which is the choice of Peter Bouteneff in his summary of Christian disunity in, Beyond the East–West

Divide. Or it might focus on the social antagonisms, like the Sofia Consultation in 1981,

which highlighted items on the ecumenical agenda ‘alien to Orthodox tradition and ethos’ (Tsetsis 1983, 71). In each of the binary narratives, it is notable that the discourse uses singular concepts to describe difference – either political, or ecclesial, or cultural. Bhabha argues that binarism distorts the articulation of difference, thereby hindering the

complexity of representations (2004, 29) . He advocates that it is in the borderline, in the place where differences interact antagonistically or affiliatively that is the proper place to develop a theory of difference. Berdyaev’s already-noted experiences of émigrés and exiles nuance, and challenge, the use of singular concepts.

This is both a useful and complicating suggestion for the WCC. It posits that there is a need for interactions to create meaning. This inverts the ecumenical process and

assumptions, which work from a position of creating meaning from Scripture and Tradition (frequently singular categories) to then find ways of interacting as churches. Bhabha’s understanding potentially revolutionises ecumenical commitment and theology because he suggests that it is necessary to create meaning from the point of interactions. Moreover, implied in this is that there is no meaning without interactions. In other words, the

churches cannot ‘signify’ without ecumenism. It is the ecumenical movement that creates points of interactions between the churches. If, as Bhabha argues, meanings are created from interactions, an ecclesiology requires an interaction to ‘signify’ the church. The borderlines and boundaries, what Mignolo calls ‘border-thinking’ (2000, 64), become the location of significance for the ecumenical movement (or ‘performance’, as Bhabha might have it), if it follows Bhabha’s concepts. ‘Performance’ (Bhabha 2010, 3) is the

representation of difference. It is not necessarily pre-given tradition, but emerges from moments of historical transformation (2010, 3). Both the interaction and the moments of historical transformation are locations of significance for the ecumenical movement.

Furthermore, the revolutionary offer to the ecumenical movement is that it is encouraged to begin with complex concepts and representations, which may not necessarily begin with affirmations of difference but with recognition of a spiritual disquietude in the essence of ecumenism. For example, why are we (the local churches) of the same essence and what are the implications for Church communion ? The unity of the church is potentially sought and expressed in the borderline and boundary interactions.

The work of the Special Commission contains a response to the East–West divide within the ecumenical movement. Indeed, since at least Sofia (1981), the Orthodox churches have been keen to stress to the ecumenical movement that Eastern and Oriental ecumenism needs to account for unity in time (the modern ecumenical movement) and unity in space (the tradition of the Church), as if the two were somehow distinguishable (1983, 68). George Florovsky’s contribution to the Amsterdam Assembly, in his reflection, The

Church: Her Nature and Task (1948) reminds us that this is not wholly a question that

arises from the work of the WCC in response to decolonisation, but is part of the earlier ecumenical considerations. The interesting point to note, firstly, about the Sofia

contribution is that it uses Western philosophical categories to explain an Eastern theological dilemma. Florovsky’s contribution to the Amsterdam assembly is more nuanced, but it still speaks in a language that appeals to the intelligence of Western

philosophical categories: to use Berdyaev’s observation, it asks contextual questions related to the European Enlightenment.

Both Berdyaev and Bhabha’s thinking presents this approach with serious questions. Berdyaev’s observations about difference invite further reflection on the essence of the difference that the ecumenical movement, and Orthodox Church in particular, is articulating. The boundary of ecclesial, political or cultural difference, which is often presented in Orthodox theological contributions to the ecumenical movement, needs further examination.

Likewise, Bhabha’s suggestion that binarism does not fully encapsulate the hybrid borderline – the place where signification is derived in Bhabha’s thought – is a direct challenge to an ecumenical movement and discourse searching for a unity in Scripture and Tradition. The Orthodox diaspora, comprising émigrés, exiles and ecclesiologies, as well as the ecumenical diaspora (which in Latin America includes people of other faiths and social movements beyond the canonical church58) may present a more helpful signifier for the ecumenical movement. In order to frame the questions posed by Berdyaev and Bhabha, the next section introduces the work of Edward Said.59

Orientalism – The West’s East?

Said’s classic book, Orientalism (2003),60

and its main theses point to a basis for a provocative analysis of the work of the Special Commission, the ecumenical movement, and the self-understanding of the Orthodox Church. His basic affirmation is that the Orient is an imagined geography of the West. The East is a creation of the West, in order to delimit the Other to the ‘beyond-us’, the unknown; and to make it simultaneously ours, in the sense of being part of the Western imaginary (2003, 54). In the development of the field of studies, according to Said, the Orient need not be East of the West – as the inclusion of the Americas after Columbus’s ‘covering-up’61

demonstrates – but it must be an expression of the familiar and the dissonant, sometimes interchangeably.

58 _{In Chapter 5 there is a fuller discussion of this ‘ecumenical diaspora’ in Latin America through an analysis} of the use of the word macro-ecumenical. ‘Ecumenical diaspora’ is my term to describe people or social movements committed to the search for unity who would not necessarily describe themselves as Christian, or those people and social movements who ‘signify’ the search for unity in the borderline interactions.

59 _{Edward Said was a Palestinian academic, born in Jerusalem, educated at Cairo and in the USA. He} contributed to a number of US universities and was a prolific writer on Literature and Cultural Studies. He is perhaps more widely known for his role in the founding in 1999, with Daniel Barenboim, of the West- Eastern Divan Orchestra for Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians.

60 _{Originally published in 1978.}

61 _{This is the preferred term of Enrique Dussel, which develops from his early theological-historical-} philosophical reflections on the way to producing a ‘Philosophy of Liberation’. The term conveys the

In the West’s history, there is an archive which builds up the Orient as the ‘complementary opposite’ (2003, 58):

These are the lenses through which the Orient is experienced, and they shape the language, perception and form of encounter between the East and the West. What gives the immense number of encounters some unity, however, is the vacillation … something patently foreign and distant acquires, for one reason or another, a status more rather than less familiar. (2003, 58)

If Said posits that the West builds up an archive which imagines the East, it is also possible that some parts of this East assimilate the Western imagination and enter into a binarism of the familiar and dissonant in a performative act (to recall Bhabha’s observation). The performative act in the ecumenical movement can include observations from Orthodox theologians, like Zizioulas (2010), that the church cannot be understood in denominational or confessional terms, all the while maintaining that the Orthodox are somehow different from denominations and confessions The binarim is presented as Orthodoxy set against